Web site GoDaddy in Scottsdale, Arizona, apologized Thursday after an email promising employees a Christmas bonus in the middle pandemic-related economic issues have proven to be a test of computer security.
“GoDaddy takes the security of our platform extremely seriously. We understand that some employees were upset by the phishing attempt and considered it insensitive, for which we apologized,” said a spokesman for GoDaddy, the largest Internet domain management company in the world. AFP in a statement.
“While the test mimics the actual trials in play today, we need to do better and be more sensitive to our employees,” GoDaddy said.
About 500 employees clicked on a December email from the company, offering a $ 650 Christmas bonus, and asked them to fill out a form with their personal details.
Two days later, a different message appeared in the received boxes.
“You received this email because you failed our recent phishing test,” the GoDaddy’s chief security officer read, according to the Arizona Copper Courier.
The phishing technique, widely used by computer hackers, sends emails that claim to be from a known person to the target, in order to obtain information to infiltrate their computer systems.
Test e-mail has sparked outrage on social media as millions of Americans have been hit hard by economic pandemic problems